Very limited ankle dorsiflexion, plantarflexion, and rotation from car accident in 2003. Also have trouble with clawed toes that don't stretch back from the ball of my foot.

I'm going to do mobilityWOD daily, starting from the first episode. Very religious about my EVA rolling and ball tissue work. Just got some resistance bands (pull-up pack) and micro-bands (rehab pack) and looking forward to learning about their many uses.

Snatch and Clean and Jerk (for a single) the yellow plates (45kg). Current best snatch is 40kg. Clean is a farce because my front squat is very weak (1RM 45kg) and I can powerclean more than squat out of a clean. Front squat stalled with linear progression and I didn't make it past the Russian Squat Routine 4x4 so have decided to focus on Strength at least until i have a bodyweight low bar back squat. Currently doing Oly technique with relatively light weights as part of active recovery on my off days.

Oly lifting is very hard for me because I lose a lot of leverage and have difficulty finding positions because of my lack of ankle dorsiflexion. Also significant difficulty split jerking because my toes don't bend back so I'm learning to squat/power jerk which isn't much fun either. Oly lifting is my first love. I'm hoping I'll get a lot better at it with improved mobility and strength (given that I'm going to keep on working technique).

4) Nutrition

Aiming for at least 100g of protein daily. That is 2 shakes and 2 cans of tuna (but I can sub alternatives). Once that is reliable I'll track calories for a while. Then look into altering things. Want my legs to grow because they are still a bit atrophied from injury I think. I am growing.

5) Smoking

Aim to stoppit. Not quite yet. But important to keep saying this.

TRAINING

Still wrecked from maxing my deadlift 3 days ago (seemed like a good idea at the time).

Lots of rolling.

Improved toe mobility from working hard on my 'wiggle your big toe' stretches and getting stuck in with a golfball over the last couple days and calves are wrecked. That is good news. ITB a mess, too. DOMS in medial glutes from yesterdays x-band walks and micro-band squats.

MobilityWOD episode 1

10 minutes hanging out in a deep squat.

mommy! ankles / feet did not like this at all. everything else doing fine.

I tend to wake up at riducolous times aswell. But I relate that to my love of coffee, although I only have 2 shots a day. Do you like coffee Alexus? And i didnt realise you do mobilityWOD, which is great but sometimes that guy can get a bit confusing.

Cal - Thanks. Had a look through a few of the vids and looks like i'm going to be discovering a lot about my bodies deficiencies. Really hope this will help me recruit things properly for all the lifts.

Upscale - More than half of that time was spent with me hugging the hell out of a bench trying to take some of the stress off my ankles. I think the whole thing would have been a lot more relaxing if I'd been wearing my super-oly shoes (2x standard heel raise).

Snapper - Just hanging out down there. Some prying the hips apart, some recruiting then relaxing, some wiggling around and bouncing. The aim was just to spend 10 minutes hanging out down there, however felt useful / good.

Kimba - Wiggling my toes back at ya!

minimal - I feel like the gym is this wonderful playground that I've just discovered. Curiouser and curiouser.

Rolling - Calves pretty bruised so just gentle massage rolling trying to promote blood flow. ITB doing better after all the work I did yesterday. Spent some time on my upper back / around my shoulders.

Glute Bridges 1x15, One legged Glute Bridges 2x10 each side.

X band walks - 3x 10 steps each side. These feel like just the thing i need to do to strengthen adductors / medial glutes. And strengthening those feels like just the thing I need to do to stabilize my femur around the front of the hip. Some DOMS in medial glutes. That is good.

STARTING STRENGTH B

Low Bar Back Squat

20kg 1x525kg 2x530kg 1x5

35kg 3x5 (0.5kg increase because that is the way the plates roll)

Movement feeling really good for the micro-band around the knees air squats I did yesterday. Will keep doing those on my off days. Weight felt fine. Got much more in me which is as it should be.

Powerclean

35kg 1x337.5kg 1x2

39.5kg 6x3 (1kg increase)

Okay. Need to be careful about using hip drive rather than using my arms (not sure why I'm suddenly finding this a problem). Can work on being more upright (chest up hips down) from the floor and keeping the bar close - it is a little forwards for the catch. Weight is work, but I've got more in me. Getting down under a tiny bit lower for the catch, too, which is good progress for my ankles.

Press.

Bailed. There is one guy at my gym who represented the country for Oly Lifting. I don't see him around very much these days - so when I do I try and do something Oly because occasionally he will offer a pointer or two.

cal - i can tell that my new calf ouchies are from the new range of motion because when i stretch out my toes i can feel tendons / muscles up my calves and around my ankles that i never knew existed. i certainly did get a full body slamming from those deadlifts, though. treading very gently with them for a while.

bird - okay. i'll take some vids on saturday.

nadia - thanks

dasher - yup. smoking fucks up my recovery. reduced oxygen means my tendons don't recover as well as they would otherwise. among other things, of course.

nimain - i even woke up starving 5 hours later and ate the other half :-p

Lots of rolling. Calves still feeling like they just needed very gentle rolling. Upper back has some ouchies since I've gotten stuck into around my shoulder blades with the plastic ball.

A little bit of snatching stuff with the bar.

Bailed. I shouldn't have gone, really. Needed to rest / recover.

TRAINING (today)

Lots of rolling. Using the golf ball a bit lightly around my ankles. Will be ready to get stuck into that soon. Surprised at what I'm digging out of around my shoulder blades. Had just given it a cursory roll before.

got a hand off / spot on the last set. hmm... when everything is properly tight it feels pretty easy, when things aren't then it feels very hard. might do this weight once more again really focusing on keeping things tight.